Saturday, November 12, 2016

Finally, Marcos is allowed to be buried. What now? A sort of phenomenology

The Supreme Court has now ruled that there are no legal impediments to the burial of Former President Marcos to the Libingan ng mga Bayani. And again, it would be naive or stupid, a better word, to say that the ruling of the court would settle the issue, heal the wound, unite the nation again, and move on with our lives.

It would take generations before this issue will be settled, at least emotionally, until the Marcos saga becomes nothing but cold historical facts devoid of first person experiential and emotional narratives, heck, even the Irish and the British are friends now.

The court has ruled that there are no legal impediments, no laws and jurisprudence banning Marcos to be buried in the heroes cemetery. The nine justices said that Marcos was not total bad-ass, he was a normal human being like you and me prone to commit mistakes. He was a soldier who fought for the country and he had medals to prove it. The cases against Marcos were purely civil cases and hence he was not guilty of moral turpentine, err, turpitude (what the hell is that?).

The five dissenting Justices opinions on the other hand boils down to the fact that Marcos was the anti-thesis of a hero because he was a dictator and a human rights abuser. He was ousted through a people's revolution and that his burial in the LNMB is a sacrilege to the national shrine.

Now how do I internalize this, what does this ruling means to me as an ordinary citizen who had no first hand experience of Martial law abuses?

First, EDSA. I was too young then. Like martial law, I had no real and authentic good or bad experience about it.

What do I know about EDSA Revolution? It was a revolution that ousted Marcos and brought back democracy to the country. Others say that it was a political and a statistical anomaly, or an anomalous event where a minuscule percentage of the population in a minuscule land area made decisions for the whole country without consulting the general population. That it was a revolution of the minority composed mostly of onlookers, oligarchs and a few real revolutionaries. Look at what's happening to our timeline, right after the Aquino presidencies, things have turned around and the EDSA philosophy was relegated to a few parks and small ceremonies of few individuals, other than that, it never got imbibed in the heart of the Filipinos.

The books say otherwise. It was revolution that brought back democracy to the people. It stopped the Marcos from plundering the country. And all that Ninoy Aquino deification stuff.

It was an event that shocked the world but never really got hold in the Filipino psyche, at least my generation and the later ones. The Marcoses are back and there's the real possibility that they could be back in power in a few years. Mention EDSA and "1986" would not even be remembered, EDSA is traffic.

Martial and Human rights abuses. I read Mejares' book "The Conjugal Dictatorship" which is now revised, I read. And the book reveals how bad ass Marcos was. Mijares narrates Ferdie and Imelda's escapades from the steaming Imelda and George Hamilton trysts to Marcos begging Dovie Beams for a fellatio.

Yet, Marcos was a product of his times, JFK, Lee Kuan Yew and other bad ass world leaders. the only difference was that JFK died a saint. Lee Kuan Yew used his bad-assness in a positive way, while Marcos stuck to being a bad ass without the thought that he'd lose.

Bury or not bury, doesn't really matter to me. The guy is dead but Ferdie was an interesting person and Filipinos will never forget the talented President (or dictator, to be fair) good or bad, and that fact alone had granted him immortality. And judging from the last elections, the Libingan ng mga Bayani burial is nothing but a token to the fact that Marcoses are back, big time.